Manchester United have been fined approximately £257,000 by UEFA for what they have labelled a “minor” breach of Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations.
United are among a number of clubs sanctioned by the European footballing governing body, including the likes of Barcelona, for breaking the FFP rules in place between 2019 and 2022 — the Red Devils apparently reported “a minor break-even deficit”.
The club has said it is “disappointed by the outcome” but accepts the fine as the result of a “technical breach” according to the previous set of regulations prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Explaining why they have been fined, the board said the decision “reflected a change in the way that UEFA adjusted for Covid-19 losses during the 2022 reporting period, which allowed us to recognise only €15 million of the total €281m in revenues lost due to the pandemic within the FFP calculation”.
Manchester United have been fined £257,000 by UEFA over a minor breach of its previous financial fair play rules 💰 pic.twitter.com/Er7MOKvWbN
Manchester United have been fined €300,000 for FFP breaches.
As for Spanish giants Barca, the current La Liga champions — who have been in an awkward and precarious economic situation for some time now — were fined a slightly larger sum of €500,000 (£428,000) and despite having strapped finances are still somehow managing to build a new stadium.
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Rather unsurprisingly, UEFA said the Spanish club was guilty of falsely reporting their finances in 2022 and failing to declare “profits on disposal of intangible assets (other than player transfers) which are not a relevant income under the regulations”.
Other continental clubs said to be under the spotlight are AC Milan, Besiktas, Inter Milan; Marseille, Monaco, Paris St-Germain and Roma.
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While all of them are said to have complied with FFP last year, they are still under investigation against the new rules and the football authority said it “will continue monitoring their compliance with the settlement agreement during next season”.
Of course, the irony of this news has not been lost on Man City fans and while the details of the two teams’ respective rule-breaking differ significantly both in terms of severity and duration (City having been slapped with 115 charges over nearly a decade), neither club comes out looking rosy.
It will be interesting to see how the Premier League deals with both clubs moving forward and whether these sanctions will have any real bearing on them this season, or whether it’ll just be a case of yet more fines as so often seems to be the case.
Featured Image — Wikimedia Commons/Jason Wong (via Lookout Point)/UEFA
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High School Musical at Lowry, Salford – a night spent reliving our childhood | Review
Amy Williams
What a night spent reliving our childhood.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate or seem biased, considering this is one of my favourite film trilogies of all time, but this could be the best stage show I’ve seen in a long while.
We all know how High School Musical goes, right? Set at East High, we follow Troy and Gabriella (the star basketball player, and the geeky new girl) who meet over New Year, and then become ‘star-crossed lovers’ when back at school as they’re part of two different ‘cliques’.
The duo mess with the ‘Status Quo’ when they audition for the school musical. But will they stick to what they know? Or become stars of the stage? I’m sure you know the ending.
High School Musical is currently on stage at Lowry, Salford / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
From the costumes and the characters, to the memorable songs (there’s actually 52 songs in this production, including a mega mix at the end), they’ve kept right to the script of the films – and that’s exactly what we wanted to see.
Of course, the biggest throwback of them all is Kaycee Stroh – who originally featured as Martha Cox in the film trilogy – taking the role as Ms Darbus, and she was just as incredible as we expected her to be. And to see her do the iconic dance in the finale was unbelievable, 13-year-old Amy was screaming.
Also featuring Jason Donovan as Coach Bolton, Tobias Turley as Troy, Leonor Correia as Gabriella, Caitlin Tipping Sharpay, and Luke Bayer as Ryan, it was a proper impressive cast all round.
It’s a night to properly relive your mid-00s childhood / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
There was crowd interaction right from the off, as they taught the crowd a cheerleading routine to be included later in the show, plus for the finale, they had the lyrics on the big screen too so everyone could sing-along.
If we could go and see this show every single night, we would – it is absolutely brilliant.
Fontaines D.C. announce massive return to Manchester on new European tour
Daisy Jackson
Fontaines D.C. have just announced their biggest headline tour to date, including a massive arena gig here in Manchester.
The wildly popular Irish rock band are set to play a whopping 20 arena shows across Europe and the UK this autumn.
The tour has been announced in celebration of their upcoming fifth studio album, Dopamine Chamber, which is set for release this October.
Fontaines D.C. will hit the road just five days after the album drops, kicking off their European tour in Lisbon on 21 October.
Then they’ll make their way over to the UK, with shows in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham and London.
Fans in their home country of Ireland are told to stay tuned for live news very soon.
As we speak, Fontaines D.C. are warming up to play one of the country’s biggest festivals, with headline slots at Reading & Leeds Festival.
They’ve already released Marianne, the first single from their new album, and frontman Grian Chatten says of the album: “The album itself is a dopamine chamber. You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you.”
The new record has been recorded between London, the English countryside, and Palermo, where Chatten recorded vocals in a makeshift booth built from mattresses and cushions.
He said: “There’s a poignant sense of us being on the brink of some other kind of form of humanity, or non-humanity.”
Tickets will go on general sale at 10am on Thursday 3 September, with pre-sale live from 10am on Tuesday 1 September.
You can access tickets for Fontaines D.C. in Manchester HERE.
Fans who pre-order Dopamine Chamber from the official store by 6pm on Monday 31 August will gain access to the UK pre-sale.
Fontaines D.C. UK tour dates in full
Friday 20 November – Liverpool, UK – M&S Bank Arena
Saturday 21 November – Manchester, UK – AO Arena
Sunday 22 November – Glasgow, UK – OVO Hydro
Tuesday 24 November – Leeds, UK – First Direct Bank Arena
Wednesday 25 November – Birmingham, UK – Utilita Arena
Danny Jones -
15th July 2023 
